The veteran, assistant United States Attorney and his trial partner, Jennifer Waier, also have documentation that Witsoe ordered evidence of the conspiracy to be destroyed so that he, Gillis and Vigil wouldn't fall into "deep yogurt" if anyone honest in law enforcement discovered the ruse.

Indeed, Witsoe didn't know he was being recorded by the FBI when he told Gillis that he would route the $2,500 to the DEA agent through an intermediary.

"Mum's the word on everything," Witsoe was captured telling Gillis, who secretly worked for federal agents after his lawyer allegedly gave him the bribery option.

Yet, a jury summoned to render justice in U.S. District Court Judge Andrew J. Guilford's 10-floor courtroom deliberated all day Monday, needed multiple replays of the FBI's audio tapes of the scheme and still couldn't reach unanimous verdicts.

The excellent courtroom work of Michael D. Schwartz and Ken Julian, criminal defense lawyers for Witsoe and Vigil, apparently has so far worked to befuddle jurors about the damning contents of the tapes.

The defense theory of the case is that the FBI didn't "connect the dots" to prove Gillis' money landed in Vigil's pocket--an assertion that might have been more credible if Witsoe hadn't said on the recordings to Gillis that he would take steps to funnel the money to the DEA agent who was at the time in the midst of a personal, financial mess that led to bankruptcy.

R. Scott Moxley’s award-winning investigative journalism has touched nerves for two decades. An angry congressman threatened to break Moxley’s knee caps. A dirty sheriff promised his critical reporting was irrelevant and then landed in prison. Corporate crooks won’t take his calls. Murderous gangsters mad-dogged him in court. The U.S. House of Representatives debated his work. Pusillanimous cops have left hostile messages using fake names. Federal prosecutors credited his stories for the arrest of a doctor who sold fake medicine to dying patients. And a frantic state legislator literally caught sleeping with lobbyists sprinted down state capital hallways to evade his questions in Sacramento.